SYNONYMS: A Poem for A. Ayyappan
by Koyamparambath Satchidanandan on Thursday, 28 October 2010 at 17:09
SYNONYMS
(For A. Ayyappan)
K. SATCHIDANANDAN
To a green line walking unsteadily towards
a canvas emptied of its colours,
I gave your name.
To a breeze where the taste
Of no girl’s lips lasts beyond an evening,
I gave your name.
To the map of a country coming into being
only when on it the traveler sets foot,
I gave your name.
To the orphans’ garden where
no plant has roots and no flower a name,
I gave your name.
To the island of nymphs rising
from the water-like chirpings of sparrows,
I gave your name.
To the incomplete idol made of
slime, blood, arrack and dream
I gave your name.
To the bird that chose to sing
from the burning bough seeing that the past is chaos
and the future, deluge ,
I gave your name.
To the notice of auction
the street-singer posted
on the rusted door of Heaven,
I gave your name.
To the lapwing that flew
from the Sangam age to the bombed Iraq,
I gave your name.
To the alphabet of the future
that flashed across the clouds
like a white Persian horse,
I gave your name.
To the fourth door of hell from which
the serpent came with the tempting fruit,
I gave your name.
To the nameless tune that
Descended from the rainbow wondering whether
it was Ghalib’s ghazal or Lorca’s ballad,
I gave your name.
To the numbness of the mother
cooking dinner for her son long-dead in war,
I gave your name .
To the angel of the slums who descended
on the sex-workers’ street
with prayers for its mothers and stars for its children,
I gave your name.
To the mixed festive scent of
the new cloth, memories, sweat and jasmines
emerging from the opened box of the dead beloved,
I gave your name.
I gave your name,
to the post-office in the desert,
to the grammar of grass,
to the string that no sitar has,
the melody that bit the singer to death,
to the thorns’ memory of spring,
to God who forgot to sign
the declaration of equality.
I gave your name
To the innocent’s blood spreading on the
hangman’s request for pardon,
to the freedom-dreams
of the unclaimed corpses of Kashmir,
to the hunger of the slain tribal
that can no more be quenched,
the stones’ thoughts about turning into flowers,
the sandgrains’ thoughts about turning into butterflies,
the hood that the tree failed to have
to raise against its feller,
the journeys of the worlds
through different doors into silence,
to these transient towers of words
that the mortals build with pride,
to death’s scholarly eminence that
sits in the cosmic library in coat and shoes
striking off , with black ink, each word he has read .
I gave my name
to you.
(Translated from Malayalam by the poet)